Pony Up

Backstage at New York City Ballet on a recent afternoon, a Shetland pony waited to audition for the role of a donkey. The pony—short and broad, with pinto coloring that included a suggestion of eyeliner—was harnessed to a small open cart partly filled with plastic apples.

For more than thirty years, a donkey named Giorgio appeared in every New York City production of George Balanchine’s “Union Jack.” The ballet, on British themes, calls for two girls to be carried onto the stage in a cart, pulled by a donkey and led by a boy. The girls leap off and join a dance to the tune of “There Is a Tavern in the Town.” The donkey waits; the girls climb back into the cart and ride off, and, a moment later, the stage is full of sailors. Giorgio, who lived in stables on West Forty-eighth Street, alongside other animals available for film and theatrical performances, last performed in “Union Jack” in 2012.

“We didn’t know exactly how old Giorgio was, but we did know that he originated the ballet, in 1976,” Marquerite Mehler, the company’s production stage manager, said. She was waiting in the wings for Peter Martins, N.Y.C.B.’s chief ballet master, who would evaluate the pony. “Giorgio was very calm and relaxed, but slow,” she said. “We sort of knew that it was the last time. A lot of people took pictures.”

Giorgio died last May. And Mehler, explaining, “I am somehow responsible for arranging the donkeys,” called Giorgio’s stable to ask if there was another animal that could take his place. In January, a few hours before the season’s first performance, Diego, a donkey, arrived for a dress rehearsal. “It didn’t work out,” Mehler said. “Diego entered O.K., but he would not leave the stage.”

Martins—sixty-seven years old and lean, wearing a zip-up black sweater—now appeared at Mehler’s side, and took up the story of this recent disappointment. “He went like this,” Martins said, and, miming stubbornness, he bent at the waist, pushed against the edge of a desk, and held the position. “There were four people pulling him,” Martins recalled. Diego’s two-minute appearance stretched to fifteen. His handlers eventually decided that the donkey would be able to leave the stage only by walking backward. “So he did a Michael Jackson,” Martins said. “He moonwalked off the stage.” To demonstrate, Martins moonwalked.

“I mean, I had to fire the goddam donkey. We couldn’t take a chance. Because there’s a whole dance happening” —he snapped his fingers—“right afterward, the whole stage filled with dancers, and you couldn’t have a donkey standing there in the middle of it. ”

Diego returned to his stable. For that evening’s performance, Martins gave the part of the donkey to Henry Clark, the nine-year-old boy whose job was to lead the donkey onto the stage.

Martins recalled that, in 1976, when he danced in the première of “Union Jack,” his son, Nilas, led out the donkey.

“My son, who is now . . .”

“Forty-seven,” Mehler said.

“Forty-seven. He was the original donkey boy. Balanchine said to me, ‘I need a little boy who can take out the donkey, stand, do nothing while they dance, and then, at the right moment, walk off. Do you think he can do it?’ I said, ‘Fine.’ My son was petrified. I have pictures. He’s now forty-seven, and Giorgio is dead.”

After Diego’s failure, the stables, which had no other donkeys, sent Mehler head shots of two ponies, called Spanky and Hot-Diggity. Mehler and Martins chose Spanky, for being smaller and rounder.

And now Martins had the opportunity to watch Spanky onstage. A pianist played. Jenifer Ringer and Andrew Veyette, principal dancers, danced a music-hall kind of dance. Spanky was led on, with the girls; and then, at the right time, he was led off.

“Exactly right!” Martins said afterward. “Spanky’s in. Everything’s beautiful at the ballet. He got the part.”

He added, “Truthfully, I would have been happy with Henry alone—the little boy—bringing the sisters on. And then we don’t have to go through the goddamn nonsense.”

“On the other hand,” Mehler said.

“On the other hand, this was Balanchine’s wish,” Martins said. “So I thought, How can I make that decision? He wanted a donkey.” He paused. “He got a horse.”

When, three days later, Spanky appeared for the first time in front of a ballet audience, he stopped in the middle of the stage just long enough to let his passengers alight, and to perform an act associated with donkeys and ponies equally. He left the stage in a hurry; there was an unscheduled curtain drop, a public announcement—“Ladies and gentlemen, please let us take a minute to clean up our act”—and Hot-Diggity waited for a phone call. ♦

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